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SLIDESHOW: Humans, 'zombies' duke it out at SCAD

Humans defend the Turner Hall courtyard against 'zombies' Friday night at the Savannah College of Art & Design during a game of Humans vs. Zombies. (Dash Coleman/Savannah Morning News)

Humans defend the Turner Hall courtyard against 'zombies' Friday night at the Savannah College of Art & Design during a game of Humans vs. Zombies. (Dash Coleman/Savannah Morning News)

The zombie apocalypse might just be upon us.

But don’t worry — it should be over soon. A group of Savannah College of Art & Design students are working tirelessly to keep their undead peers in check.

That is, if they haven’t already been turned, too.

“We turned into zombies last night about 11-ish,” said Rebecca Weinel, who, along with Ally Hunt, wore a torn T-shirt and had fake blood applied to her face.

The pair ducked behind some bushes in the courtyard outside SCAD’s Turner Hall after dark Friday, waiting to strike.

No, “The Walking Dead” hasn’t become reality in Savannah. Students at SCAD are in the midst of an annual bout of the game Humans vs. Zombies. The game of tag, which pits humans against a growing number of “zombies” is played on campuses around the country.

SCAD’s Humans vs. Zombies club is one of the biggest at the college, organizers said.

The group has anywhere from 300-400 members, said Kristina Ness, a former club officer. The game is organized throughout the year, and is played the first weekend of SCAD’s spring quarter. Each year’s setup is different.

Zombies must tag humans with two hands to turn them into the undead. Humans attempt to subdue the zombies with weapons firing foam darts. Once a player is turned into a zombie, he or she loses any gear and dons a blue bandana.

Ness, who has made many friends playing the game during her years at SCAD, was glad to be back in action again this year instead of planning. She even got to play a special role.

“I am the original zombie, actually,” she said. “I was the first one to be infected. I got to start all of the zombie tags.”

Each day of the event, which ends Sunday and is held on SCAD housing, includes different missions.

Wearing a face mask and protective pads like armor, Jack Butler stood watch outside the gates of Turner Annex on Fahm Street with several others. He was armed with three foam dart guns — one hidden in a back pocket — and a few stuffed socks that worked like hand-thrown projectiles.

“We’re a squad of about six,” Butler said. “Well, formerly six — one of us ‘died’ last night. We work mostly as a smaller group. We collaborate with other groups to complete human objectives, and we generally try to keep each other alive.”

His girlfriend was the one who fell to the zombies Thursday night.

“It happens,” Butler said.

Increasingly so.

“There were maybe 40-50 zombies last night, and that was the first day,” he said. “The second day there are already 136 zombies out, and this mission just started.”

Noah Sterling lasted about two hours before he got turned. It wasn’t really that upsetting to him, though.

“I like being a zombie,” he said. “It’s more fun. You get to run around more. Humans … you have to move really slowly in packs. It’s not as much fun.”

And when the humans moved from the annex into the Turner Hall courtyard a short time later, they did move cautiously, foam dart guns drawn and watching each other’s backs. They moved from section to section, clearing and holding each one before moving on as they completed objectives.

That caution didn’t save them all, though. Several fell to charging zombies.

Some people who weren’t even playing as humans didn’t make it out unscathed. Weinel and Hunt, the two zombies who hid in the bushes, got a pretty big catch.